Texas Architect March/April 2012: Destinations

Destinations represent different points of arrival, whether a temporary stopping place during a student’s busy day on campus or destinations for entertainment and cultural events.Of particular note is the destination for dignitaries from around the world who will travel to Houston in mid-April for the official unveilingof the Asia Society Texas Center, previewedon page 44. Yoshio Taniguchi’s design for the$48.4 million building establishes the New York based Asia Society (founded in 1956 by John D.Rockefeller III to educate the public about Asia)with its first branch between the two coasts. Thefour-day celebration culminates with a free openhouse on April 14-15 for the public, featuringtours, food, and performances, as well as theopening of Treasures of Asian Art: A RockefellerLegacy, a temporary exhibition of works from theMr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller Collection atAsia Society New York.

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Catalytic Jam
Latest project by artists Havel and Ruck
inspired by Fifth Ward’s music heritage
by Fernando Brave, FAIA
Clockwise from top
right Dean Ruck, Sherman Miller, and Dan
Havel take five. The
artists improvised with
found materials. Intended
as a temporary public
sculpture, “Fifth Ward
Jam” will stay on the site
at least through October
2014.
L
ike the music that inspired Dan
Havel and Dean Ruck of Havel Ruck
Projects to make Fifth Ward Jam, their
latest collaboration is a social experiment. The duo, with help from local
resident Sherman Miller, assembled Fifth Ward
Jam using materials scavenged from dilapidated
buildings in the Houston neighborhood. Their
sculptural intervention appears to pulse with
movement, evoking a dynamism that resonates
harmonically with the Fifth Ward’s rich heritage
of blues, soul, jazz, zydeco, and hip hop.
An abandoned house moved from over a mile
away provided the central element. Also intricate
to the project was the special permit concocted
by the City of Houston that listed the structure
as a house to be relocated and delivered to the
site as a sculpture. “Somehow,” the artists say,
“the house magically ceased to be a house during
its journey.”
As realized by the artists, the combination
of chutes, tunnels, and sightlines coalesces in a
coherent organic form. At the same time, the
implied forces of movement seem to tear the
object apart in multiple directions. This stretching, twisting, and pulling hints of its conceptual origins in improvised music, and serves
as an appropriate backdrop for impromptu
performances on the stage extending from the
bandshell-like space.
Fifth Ward Jam was funded with an Artist
in Neighborhood grant from the Houston Arts
Alliance as part of a program that seeks to spur
catalytic change through public art of temporary
nature. According to Ruck, Sherman Miller’s
Havel Ruck Projects assembled
‘Fifth Ward Jam’ using
materials scavenged from
dilapidated buildings.
spontaneous participation proved to be just the
type of catalytic transformation hoped for by the
project’s benefactors. A resident of the neighborhood, he approached the artists and asked for work
shortly after they arrived to begin the project.
Ruck says Miller didn’t immediately buy into the
concept, but later became integral to the process.
Havel Ruck Projects previously created Inversion, a
short-lived installation along Montrose Boulevard that
was profiled in Texas Architect’s July/August 2005
edition. The latest project, located at 3705 Lyons
Avenue just northeast of downtown Houston, received
additional support from the Fifth Ward Community
Redevelopment Corporation.
Fernando Brave, FAIA, is principal of Brave/Architecture in Houston.
Images Courtesy Havel Ruck Projects and Fernando Brave
68 Texas Architect
3/4 2012